Assignments & duties
What is access control?
Access control is managing who may enter a site and recording that they did — by officer, by system, or by both. It is the core duty on most manned sites.
The record is what makes it useful after the fact. Knowing who was on site at a given time answers questions about theft, about safety in an evacuation, and about contractor activity.
Officer-operated access control depends on assignment instructions being specific about who is permitted, because an officer deciding in the moment will be persuaded eventually.
Tailgating is the failure mode no system prevents, which is why access control is usually a combination of a system and a person rather than either alone.
What goes wrong in practice
- Visitor records kept but never usable — illegible, unsearchable or not retained.
- Instructions that do not say who may be admitted, leaving each case to judgement.
- Contractor access granted without recording what they were there to do.